The world may finally be ready for Zaha Hadid. An
Iraq-born deconstructivist architect based in London, Hadid has
been making waves with controversial and futuristic architectural
concepts for over 20 years. Many of her ideas never made it past
the drawing board, because the designs were just too…well,
different.

Now, she’s gaining steam, and has projects going all over the
world. She was recently commissioned to design an Aquatics
Centre in London for the 2012 Summer Olympics, a
Performing Arts Center in Abu Dhabi, and the spaceship-like
Innovation Tower for the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Her buildings are oddly shaped (compared to traditional
architecture), but definitely have a very organic feel. For
instance, the Abu Dhabi building (pictured above)is complete with
windows that look like leaves, and Hadid herself calls it a
“biological analogy”.

The Lithuanian capital city of Vilnius is about to embark on the
construction of a new-age masterpiece. Designed by award-winning
British Iraqi
deconstructivist architect Zaha Hadid, the new Guggenheim
Hermitage Museum will be a museum and arts center that houses the
St. Petersburg-based State Hermitage Museum and selected Guggenheim
collections.

The pre-build research for the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum is
slated for completion by 2008 and the building set to open in 2011.
Check out the phenomenal photos of the design pictured below the
fold.

Other remarkable projects by Zaha Hadid currently underway
include the CMA
CGM Tower in Marseille, France, the Bridge
Pavilion in Zaragoza, Spain, the Kartal Urban Transformation in
Istanbul, Turkey, and the Glasgow
Transport Museum in Glasgow, Scotland.

Seeing such forward-thinking architecture cropping up in the
small post-Soviet Baltic country of Lithuania, with a total
population of only about 3.7 million, demonstrates just how high
the bar has been set for futuristic architecture around the world.
I wonder when such design will make its way into more expensive
markets like NYC? (cont.)